Author Description

The writings of art critics voicing their opinions on opera in newspaper reviews have charted a unique performance history of opera in Cape Town. In post-apartheid South Africa, these critical voices have particularly engaged in public discourse around the transformation of opera as an art form amidst a myriad of socio-political shifts in the country. This book traces the trajectory of these discourses and initiates a conversation on the development of a distinctly South African operatic expression and aesthetic in the 21st century. These published perspectives of art critics, who reviewed opera for the local daily newspapers Cape Times and Die Burger from the 1980s until now, portray the transformational power of opera in a country burdened by a history of colonialism and apartheid but determined to showcase a democratic “rainbow nation” on stage. Themes covered in the book include the dominance of Western European opera as a measure of taste, blackness on the operatic stage, the transformation of opera after apartheid, the Africanisation and localisation of opera, and the performance of indigenous South African operas.